mats and went on shore, determined if possible, to sleep on the ground.  Overcome by fatigue, the fear of being attacked by alligators, or any thing else, they selected a dry place and laid themselves down on their mats.  They had nearly dropped asleep, when they were roused by several severe stings, and found themselves covered with black ants.  They had got up their trousers, and were tormenting them dreadfully.  At first they knew not which way to get rid of them.  Their men, Pascoe, Sam, and Jowdie, seeing the condition they were in, landed from the canoe, and made large fires in the form of a ring, and they laid down in the midst of them and slept till daylight.  The sting of a black ant is quite as painful as that of a wasp.

Towards the evening of the following day, they departed from the main river, and took their course up a small branch towards Brass Town, running in a direction about southeast from that which they had just left.  They had not proceeded far on this course, when to their great satisfaction, they found themselves influenced by the tide.  They had previously observed an appearance of foam on the water, which might have been carried up by the flood tide from the mouth of the river, but they now felt certain of being within its influence.  They were constantly annoyed by the canoe running aground on a bank, or sticking fast in the underwood, which delayed their progress considerably, and the men were obliged to get out to lighten and lift the canoe off them.  Their tract was through a narrow creek, arched over by mangroves, so as to form a complete avenue, which in many places was so thick as to be totally impenetrable by the light above.  A heavy shower of rain came on and wetted them thoroughly, and after this was over, the dripping from the trees, which overhung the canoe, kept them in constant rain nearly the whole of the night.  The smell from decayed vegetable substances was sickly and exceedingly disagreeable.

Through these dismal and gloomy passages, they travelled during the whole of the night of the 15th November without stopping, unless for a few minutes at a time, to disengage themselves from the pendant shoots of the mangrove and spreading brambles, in which they occasionally became entangled.  These luxuriant natives of the soil are so intricately woven, that it would be next to impossible to eradicate them.  Their roots and branches are the receptacles of ooze, mud, and filth of all kinds, exhaling a peculiar offensive odour, which no doubt possesses highly deleterious qualities.

The reason adduced for not resting during the night, was the apprehension entertained by King Boy, of being unable to overtake his father and brothers, they having left the Eboe country the day before them.  A certain spot had been previously fixed upon by the parties for the meeting, and they arrived there about nine o’clock a.m., and found those individuals in three large canoes, with their attendants, waiting